E286 
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1865 
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THE 



CCESS AND PROMISE 



AMERICAN UNION, 



AN ORATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZESS OP BURLI.VOTON, N. J., ON THE OCCASION OP 
THEIR CELEBRATION OF THE 



EIGHTY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY, 



0"XXl3^ 4tll, 186S. 



Bv J. HOWARD PUGH, M. D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 

1865. 



THE 



SUCCESS AND PROMISE 



AMERICAN UNION, 



AN ORATION, 



DELIVERBD BEFORE THE CITIZENS OP BURLINGTON, N. J., ON THE OCCASION OF 
THEIR CELEBRATION OF THE 



EIGHTY-OTNTH AMIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY, 



J'\Xl3^ 4tll, 186S. 



Bt J. HOWARD PUGH, M. D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, No. 607 SANSOM STREET. 

1865. 



West. Bee. Htek. 800. 






CORRESPONDENCE. 



Burlington, June 2Qth, 1865. 
DocT. J. Howard Pugh, 

Dear Sir : 

The approaching Fourth of July will 
be an era in American History. Throughout the length and breadth 
of our re-united countr}' there will go^ thrill of heartfelt joy. With 
us, in our happy North, for the grand success of the cause in which 
we too have pledged "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 
And surely there can be no heart, in all the misguided, but now free 
and soon to be happy South, that will not rejoice at the termination of 
tills terrible war. In view of this, your fellow-townsmen, remembering 
with pleasure the many interesting and instructive discourses they 
have listened to from you ; and remembering, also, your unwavering 
loyalty throughout the dark and gloomy period of the last four years, 
respectfully request you to deliver the oration, at the celebration in 
this city, on Tuesday next. 

Very Respectfully, 

Your Obedient Servant, 

E. B. GRUBB, Jr. 

Chairman Committee of Arrangements. 



Burlington, June 39</t, 1865. 
Col. E. B. Grubb, 

Dear Sir : 

Although the pressure of professional 
duties, and the short notice given me, affords me less opportunity for 
preparation tlr^n I could have desired; yet, I accept, with pleasure, 
the kind invitation proffered me, by yourself and my fellow townsmen, 
to address you on the ensuing Fourth of July. 

I reciprocate the sentiments you express in regard to the importance 
of the day, not doubting that it will henceforth date as the starting 
point in a career of peace and happiness and prosperity, such as our 
country has never known. 

Yours, veiy respectfully, 

J. HOWARD PUGH. 



Burlington^ July 5t7i, 1865. 
DocT. J. Howard Pugh, 

Dear Sm ; 

Your fellow -citizens who were 
present at the celebration of the Fourth of July, on the Green Bank, 
were convinced that a more thorough dissemination of the sentiments 
so ably and powerfully expressed by you on that occasion, would be 
attended by the best results, in setting more clearly before our people 
the issue of the mighty contest through which we have passed. The 
undersigned therefore — a special committee of arrangements — respect- 
fully ask that you will favor them with a copy of your address for 
publication. 
(Signed.) 

E. BURD GRUBB, Jr., Ch'n, JOHN D. MOORE, M.D., 
CHAS. G. MILNOR, ELW. HANCOCK, 

NATHAN HAINES, JOHN CHURCHMAN, 

CHAS. A. WALTERS, JOS. E. TAYLOR, 

EDMUND MORRIS. 



Burlington, July 5th, 1865. 
Gentlemen : 

In compliance with your request, I herewith transmit you 
a copy of my address, for publication. Trusting that it may be pro- 
ductive in some measure, at least, of the good you anticipate, and 
thanking you for your courtesy and kindness, 
I remain, 

Very respectfully yours, 

J. HOWARD PUGH. 
To Messrs. Grtjbb, Milnor, Haines and others. Committee. 



^- 



Fellow Citizens : 

Three years have passed, to-day, since we met iu mass 
meeting to celebrate the anniversary of our Independence. 
Tliey have been three eventful, years. They have been 
years such as seldom come in the life of nations. They 
have been years of terrific and almost unexampled war. 
All along the coast line from the Chesapeake to the Eio 
Grande ; all along the course of our great western rivers ; 
on the soil of every Southern State ; in the ravines and 
recesses of the border mountains ; the children of a com- 
mon ancestry — men of one blood and one nation, whose 
fathers united in common cause against a common enemy 
and pledged to each other " their lives, their fortunes and 
their sacred honor" — these men, through these three 
pregnant years, have been grappling in desperate and 
deadly conflict. And although thousands of our noblest 
and bravest have gone down in the struggle, and thousands 
of hearts still hopelessly mourn over the war's desolations, 
yet, out of the blood and tears and ashes of this long and 
bitter conflict immortal principles and immortal memories 
have sprung up to bloom and blossom evermore. For 
these years have no parallel in history when judged by the 
degree of beneficent influence they are destined to exert, 
not only upon this nation, but upon all nations and for all 
time. 

You remember the occasion of our anniversary three 
years ago. JEarly in the spring of that year, the grand 
army of the Potomac, under the leadership of McClellan, 
had been sent to the Peninsula, after long and weary and 
too patient waiting on the part of the people. It carried 
with it the flower of our Northern youth and manhood, 
and the hopes and prayers of twenty millions of people. 
The war, we were told, was to be "short, sharp and decisive." 



All hoped tlie end was near, and that the rebellion would 
soon be crushed in its own capital. But, finally, there 
came stealing in upon us, on the wings of those early July 
mornings, rumors of defeat and despondency. The sad 
truth had to be spoken. The army of the Potomac, broken 
and shattered, was crouching on the banks of the James, 
and thousands of our brave soldiers were dead or dying in 
the marshes of the Chicahominy. 

In the midst of these gloomy and disheartening rumors, 
we held our anniversary. But we met in an open grove 
on one of the loveliest days of all the year. Harvests were 
ripening, birds were singing, flowers were blooming, life 
and health and beauty were all around us, and, standing in 
the midst of these joyous and exultant forces of nature, 
and remembering how Divine purposes stream through 
all human affairs, we could not believe, and we did not 
believe, that our country was to perish. 

On that occasion it was my fortune to address you, and 
I used these words, and spoke, I doubt not, the thoughts of 
most who heard me : " We shall succeed in crushing this 
rebellion. True, tidings of disaster float upon the air. 
God pity the dying soldier and the desolate homes through- 
out the land. If we have lost a great battle the war is just 
begun. We may lose one battle, we may lose fifty, but we 
will gain more than we lose, and will conquer in the end. 
We have two men to their one; we have ten times their 
wealth ; we hold the sea ; we have infinite resources in 
reserve upon land ; we have a cause that will keep us ever 
hopeful and defiant, and in the end we must conquer. * * * 
It may be true that we can only learn wisdom in the severe 
school of defeat and disaster. But learn it -^e must and 
will, and we will teach them, and teach the world that 
republican liberty in America was not born to die." And I 
congratulate you, my countrymen, that this day, we all 
then thought must come sometime, has come at last. The 
great rebellion is dead. Its armies have been beaten and 
disbanded. Its first general is a prisoner of war. Its 



prime leader is a prisoner of State under indictment for 
his life. The worst traitor of them all, because more highly 
honored than them all by the country he betrayed, has fled, 
like his prototype Arnold, to the shelter of another land. 
Civil and military officers of the fallen government are 
pleading, without number, for executive clemency. In 
every town and village of the South, men are crowding, 
day after day, to Government officers to take the oath of 
allegiance to the United States. And thus, the great civil 
war, whose gigantic proportions filled the wliole land; 
which, at the opening of the present year, was taxing 
every energy and absorbing every thought of the whole 
people, has vanished like a dream in the night. And now 
we have peace. We have but one country. We have a 
land without a slave, and we have established, upon foun- 
dations firmer than the great Webster ever deemed pos- 
sible, "Liberty and Union now and forever, one and 
inseparable." Therefore, to-day, let the people rejoice ; let 
the bells ring ; let the cannon roar; let bonfires blaze; let 
shouts and songs of joy and jubilee ring out over all the 
land; for, in the interest of all oppressed humanity; in the 
interest of popular government the world over; in the 
interest of man as man, as against class, and order, and 
privilege, has the great contest of modern times been 
decided. 

American soil, baptized with American blood, hence- 
forth, is to be held, above all nations, sacred to the rights 
of human nature. To the God of our fathers, Who planted 
the Pilgrims upon Plymouth Eock, Who carried us through 
the birth-agony of the Eevolution, and Who did not forsake 
us in this last stern struggle for life and liberty, be praise 
and honor and glory and dominion, evermore. To the 
soldiers of the Union, the living and the dead ; to our 
incomparable generals, Grant and Sherman and Sheridan, 
and Thomas and Meade and McPherson and their brave 
and faithful lieutenants ; to the members of the Cabinet ; to 
the President of the United States ; to the rebellion's last 



victim — liberty's latest martyr — Abraham Lincoln — our 
second AVashington — are most justly due the everlasting 
gratitude of the nation. We are not the men, nor is this 
the age to take the full measure of their deeds. Their 
fame is to grow steadily brighter in the calm light of 
history. Their names are to be written down among the 
heroes and sages of the Great Eepublic to be loved and 
honored while liberty and law endure. 

The war being over and the nation saved, let us inquire 
what lessons have been taught us and what duties are 
before us. It is difficult, for men living in remarkable 
times, duly to appreciate and understand those times. Our 
civil war is ended. We are conscious of a feeling of relief, 
a sense of quiet. We are thrilled by no excitements. We 
hear no longer of defeats or victories. News and news- 
papers have lost their interest. Affairs seem to be running 
in the old grooves, and life to have found the old routine, 
and there is reason to doubt whether we fitly realize the 
vast importance to all the world of these passing hours of 
our history. It is easy, and it is common, on days like this, 
to be carried by the stimulus of the occasion beyond the 
bounds of exact utterance, but I indulge in no such license, 
when I say, that the Union "as it is," is not and never will 
be the "Union as it was;" that we have gone through the 
agony of a new birth ; that we have made and have entered 
upon a new epoch in human history, than which there 
has been none more important in the past or is there likely 
to be in the future. And it is not merely because we have 
put down a rebellion. Other nations have done the same. 
It is not merely, that we have given freedom to four 
millions of slaves. England and France have abolished 
slavery throughout their colonies; and Russia has liberated 
twenty millions of serfs. It consists, in great measure, in 
the decision we have given to vital questions in which all 
mankind are equally interested with ourselves : 

Who shall govern? Who has the right to govern? Is 
man capable of self-government ? These are questions, old 



a.s the race, and that have agitated all nations. And they 
are, to day, felt to be, b}'- all nations, more important and 
imperative than all other questions combined. The minds 
of the liberalists of all nationalities and of large masses of 
men everywhere are being stirred to their depths by these 
very questions; and Europe is now but a slumbering vol- 
cano muffling its thunders for some auspicious hour. These 
questions have usually been decided in the interest of the 
privileged classes. We have decided differently. We have 
demonstrated the practicability of popular government. 
It is matter of immeasurable import, that we can now 
declare, in the face of the world, that the "Great Experi- 
ment " is no longer an experiment, but an accomplished 
work. Strength, honor, will, wisdom, energy, endurance, 
wealth and power are found to belong to governments of 
the people as well as to the rule of emperors and kings. 
And there is not a throne on earth, there is not a royal 
privilege, or a hereditary title, or an entailed estate, the 
perpetuity of which is not consciously imperilled by the 
conclusion of our American conflict. 

Eighty years have not yet passed since the adoption of 
the Federal Constitution. A government so young, and 
conducted on principles so new, could be called by no other 
name than an experiment. But it grew and prospered be- 
yond all precedent. In all the elements of progress that 
belong to an advanced civilization, in population, wealth, 
power, and social and political influence, it ran a career of 
unexampled prosperity. But at last the trial came. It had 
withstood forces from without ; but forces from within, of 
all others the most dangerous, threatened the dissolution of 
the Government. The ruling classes of the Old World 
believed the end near they had so long predicted. Argu- 
ments oft used in the English Parliament in favor of limited 
franchise increased in force ten-fold. A member of the 
House of Commons talked of the " bursting of the bubble 
republic." Even here, during the closing months of Bu- 
chanan's administration, the efibrts of the Government 



10 

were so paltry and powerless, the national humiliation was 
so excessive, that many despaired of the Eepublic. And 
the lethargy was not entirely shaken off until old Edmund 
Euf&n fired that first gun, in Charleston harbor, which con- 
demned his State to fire and sword and himself to the 
grave of a suicide. The theory of a free government pre- 
supposes the largest liberty of the individual consistent 
with the safety of the state and the rights of others. The 
strength of such a government consists in freedom of indi- 
vidual action, in the cultivation of the individual mind, in 
the independence and self-assertion of the individual cha- 
racter. War requires the reverse of this. A freeman must 
unlearn most of the lessons of his life before he can be a 
soldier. He cannot say what he thinks. He .cannot use 
his thoughts as a guide to his action. He cannot resent an 
indignity or rebuke a folly. His whole duty is obedience 
— submission to the will of another. It was therefore 
doubted, by those who disbelieved in the capacity of man 
for self-government, whether a government like ours could 
stand the pressure of a gigantic war without degenerating 
into anarchy or military despotism. Yet you all know the 
story of the war. You know how the treasure of the na- 
tion was poured out, year after year, at the feet of our 
rulers. You know how the youth and vigor of the nation 
rushed into the conflict; and, though oft led hither and 
thither by incompetent generals, you know with what 
patience, endurance, and devotion they bore all things for 
their country's sake. And the result proves that, though 
the American people may be scattered all over the conti- 
nent, intent upon private aims and interests, careless — too 
careless — of the incipient evils that beset th^ State, yet, 
they can be combined by the cohesive power of public 
danger into a force irresistible as an avalanche. The re- 
sult proves that, when a great and free people have founded 
a government, when its rulers come from the people, are 
chosen by the people, and are but agents of the people's 
will, there is no calculating the power of such a govern 



11 

ment, aud it cannot be overthrown. And we launch this 
truth upon the bosom of the nineteenth century, confident 
that it is one for which the nations are waiting, and which 
will bear benefits and blessings to niankind. 

Not only has our career demofistrated that a free people 
are capable of all progress in the arts of peace, and of all 
achievement in the art of war, yet it has settled another 
thing, — that the primal source of their power, — the deci- 
sion of the ballot, — must be held inviolably sacred. Aud it 
cannot be shown how a government is to acquire, in a more 
eminent degree, the element of stability. Early in the war, 
John Bright, in alluding to our elections, spoke thus to the 
English people: "Every four years there springs from 
the vote created by the whole people, a President over 
that great country. I think the world affords no finer 
spectacle than this ; I think it affords no higher dignity — 
that there is no greater object of ambition on the political 
stage on which men are permitted to move. You may 
point, if you like, to hereditary royalty, to crowns coming 
down through successive generations in the same families, 
to thrones based on prescription or on conquest, to sceptres 
wielded over veteran legions or subject realms ; but to my 
mind there is nothing more worthy of reverence or obe- 
dience, nothing more sacred, than the authority of the 
freely chosen magistrate of a great and free people. And, 
if there be on earth and among men any right divine to 
govern, surely it rests with a ruler so chosen and so ap- 
pointed." 

And now, John Bright can say to the English people, 
that one attempt has been made in this countr_j to divest 
that ruler of his of&ce ; and it has failed so signally, that 
henceforth no monarch on his throne, whether holding it 
by hereditary title, or by the power of the sword — no ruler 
upon earth will sit so securely in his robes of office as the 
constitutionally elected President of the United States. 
The ballot is the freeman's proudest act. It is the point 
where all distinctions vanish ; where all men possess equal 



12 

rights, and stand on a common level ; it has been vindi- 
cated and sanctified by that last resort of men and nations, 
— the appeal to the law of force ; and there is no magic 
about great names, or royal blood, or titles of nobility, or 
the splendor of courts, or the glitter of crowns, that can 
inspire to such deeds of devotion and daring and sacrifice 
as the peril of this sacred right. 

The doctrine of State rights, ever since the foundation 
of the Government, has afforded, more or less ground for 
dispute and controversy. But it is now settled, that, what- 
ever else may be included in the rights of States, there 
certainly is not included in them the right to sever their 
connection with the general Government. It has been 
proclaimed, in tones ever to be remembered, and sounding 
from sea to sea, that the Constitution of the United States 
is, as it asserts itself to be, the supreme law of the land, 
and of all the land over which the flag waves. South 
Carolina has been taught, and never will forget, that her 
first act of war was not firing a gun in Charleston harbor, 
but passing the Ordinance of Secession. And it is cause 
of devout thankfulness that the lines are so clearly drawn. 
It is destined to give new vigor and directness to our na- 
tional life, that there is to be no longer room for doubt or 
discussion as to the powers and functions of the general 
Government. 

But the distinctive act of the war which most concerns 
us as a nation, and from which is to date the commence- 
ment of a new career of prosperity, is the abolition of sla- 
very. "When I addressed you three years ago, the value 
of our U]iion and the necessity of preserving it were the 
prominent topics suggested by the hour. For the argu- 
ments then used by the opponents of the Government 
among our own people, and especially so in this commu- 
nity, were, that we were not fighting for the Union, but for 
the negro. And they were successful, in no inconsiderable 
degree, in checking enlistments in the army, by exciting 
the prejudices and cooling the patriotic ardor of the peo- 



13 

l^le. They did not see, or seemed not to see, that they had 
any personal interest in the war whatever. On the other 
hand, men were clamoring for the abolition of slavery by 
executive decree, and they did harm, in so far as they 
made that to appear the paramount object of the war, which, 
though- always important, was always subordinate. That 
slavery was the cause of the war, that it ought to die, that 
as the war progressed it would die, was sufficiently clear to 
all thoughtful and patriotic minds; but it was equally 
clear that these facts ought not to be allowed to obscure, 
as they were doing, the still more important fact that it was 
not the rights of the negro alone or primarily for which 
we were fighting, but for the perpetuity of the United 
States Government and the rights and liberties of thirty 
millions of people and their posterity. On the 22d of 
August, 1862, the President of the United States wrote as 
follows: "I would save the Union. I would save it the 
shortest way under the Constitution. If there be those 
who would not save the Union unless they could at the 
same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If 
there be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree 
with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to 
save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy 
slavery." 

Here the ohject of the war was clearly defined, as under- 
stood by the President, and as believed in by the vast ma- 
jority of the people. But the war furnished the oioportunity 
for the abolition of slavery, and there were few who did 
not believe that it would and ought to perish. But when 
and how; whether on grounds solely of justice to the 
slave, or on grounds solely of military necessity ; whether 
the judges of such necessity should be the President of the 
United States or commanders of departments ; whether it 
should be one of the first steps of the war, with its policy 
widely doubted, or made later, when acquiescence would 
be general ; these were questions about which men noisily 



14 

differed, and that required caution and prudence and wis- 
dom to determine. I think the time and mode were wisely 
chosen. The Proclamation was issued with the general 
approbation of the people ; and it is to change forever the 
whole complexion of our politics, and clear the moral at- 
mosphere of the nation from clouds of guilt and shame. 
Leaving out of the account all question as to the right or 
wrong of slavery, or as to the effect of emancipation on 
the slave, yet it is impossible to overestimate the beneficent 
results likely to follow a policy that removes forever from 
the dominion of our polities an element of discord that 
has been always active and always pernicious, since the 
formation of the Government. 

One, if not two, of the States of the South hesitated to 
sanction the Declaration of Independence. Some of them 
hesitated to adopt the Federal Constitution ; and did not 
do so until a twenty-years sanction was given to the slave 
trade, and a gross wrong introduced into our organic law. 
And from that early period down to the breaking out of 
the rebellion, this question of slavery mingled in all, and 
moulded most, of our politics. It brought dissension into 
every department of the Government ; embittered the dis- 
cussions and detracted from the dignity of the deliberations 
of Congress ; it added new venom to party spirit ; obtruded 
itself into the social circle ; alienated friends, and kindred, 
and States, and sections, and introduced discord into every 
religious organization in the land. Every question of public 
import, of internal improvement, or of foreign policy, ques- 
tions of commerce, of finance, of morals, and law, and reli- 
gion, were all brought into some sort of relation to this 
institution. For this state of affairs, public opinion, at 
times, was disposed to hold the abolitionists responsible. 
But John Adams declared that, before the Declaration of 
Independence was written, and for a long time after, most 
of our troubles arose from the fact that the Southern colo- 
nies were opposed to republican government — one of the 
first and most persistent fruits of the slave system. And it 



15 

is absurd to suppose that a band of men, like the abolition- 
ists, neither great in number nor in influence, could succeed 
in agitating the whole political atmosphere of a nation, 
unless there were in the subject they discussed some funda- 
mental principle of right or justice which asserted itself by 
its own inherent force. And, I doubt not, that the respon- 
sibility of the abolitionists can be best comprehended under 
that general law of the universe, that truth, however humble 
its origin, has power to bring millions to its feet, and to revo- 
lutionize the world. And I doubt not that the source of all 
the troubles that culminated in our great civil war is to be 
found in the fact, that our fathers, notwithstanding the gen- 
eral clearness of their vision, and the general wisdom of 
their policy, allowed a fatal error to be ingrafted upon 
our fundamental law. Wm. H. Seward, though sneered at 
by more than half of his countrymen, was right when he 
said "there was aii irrepressible conflict between freedom 
and slavery." Abraham Lincoln was right, and, though a 
plain citizen of Illinois, spoke with the voice of a prophet 
when he declared that this "nation could not exist half slave 
and half free." Ideas that belong to the feudal system, and 
to an age of barbarism, cannot be made to work in harmony 
with the institutions of popular government ; and it is the 
folly and guilt of such attempts that bring upon nations the 
desolations of war and the penalties of offended laAV, And 
it is not easy to realize that so constant and trouble- 
some an element is to be forever removed from our politics. 
No more talk about slavery in the States and slavery in the 
territories ; about fugitive slaves, and fugitive slave laws. 
No more compromises of fundamental principles ; no more 
concessions 'to Conscious wrong ; no more efforts of poli- 
ticians to say one thing South and another North ; no more 
double-dealing, and broken faith, and bitter recriminations, 
growing out of such antagonistic interests as freedom and 
slavery ; for South and North are destined to be one in aim, 
and interest, and achievement, as they never yet have been. 
And the day is not distant when the people of the South 



16 

themselves — their whole country relieved from the blight of 
chattel slavery, and renovated by the influences and inspira- 
tions of freedom — will thank God that their arms were not 
successful, that the American Union was saved, and Ameri- 
can slavery destroyed. 

We have, therefore, great cause for thankfulness that the 
topic of slavery is banished from the arena of our politics. 
But there are higher sources of thankfulness than this — 
higher ground , from which to view the future. We have 
gained immensely in national character, and in the grandest 
result of character — power for good. Prior to the extinc- 
tion of slavery, it was not possible for us to enforce the 
maxims of liberty by the argument of example. Men with 
an iron heel on a, prostrate people, and an iron grasp on 
every throat that would speak a word in their behalf, are not 
the men to enamour the world of the beneficence of free insti- 
tutions. A government that permits one-sixth of its popula- 
tion to be deprived of the rights of manhood is in bad condi- 
tion to plead the cause of civil and religious liberty. I spea,k 
of the government and people as a whole ; for, as a whole, 
they were responsible for slavery. And should not tliis 
teach us charity and forbearance in our present dealing with 
rebels ? They followed slavery to its last consequence, re- 
bellion ; yet slavery never could have attained such pro- 
portions but for the fostering legislation and moral support 
accorded it by the North, through so many years of its history. 
It has loi^fg been almost as unpopular to denounce the institu- 
tion in the North as in the South. The most powerful argu- 
mentsin its support, and in support of its Divine sanction, have 
been written and published in the North. Every measure 
of legislation it deemed necessary was carried by aid of 
Northern votes. By such votes, petitions, p/aying for its 
extinction in the District of Columbia, Avere laid upon the 
table. By such votes, the fugitive slave law was passed, 
and was advocated by the leading statesman of the North. 
The abrogation of the Missouri Compromise was secured 
in the same manner, and was the pet measure of a Northern 



17 

Senator. The stain of slavery was a national stain, and 
thougli struck down by Northern arts and arms, its extinc- 
tion is a crowning national glory. And thus we have reno- 
vated the national life. We have unburdened the national 
conscience. We have taken our stand on the side of justice 
— on the rock of principle. The practice of the Govern- 
ment is to be more in harmony with its theory. The doc- 
trines of the Declaration of Independence are to be regarded 
less as glittering generalities, more as eternal truths. Claim- 
ing the largest liberty for ourselves, we are no longer to be 
charged with exacting a more abject servitude from a sub- 
ject race than any other nation. Claiming to be an asylum 
for the oppressed of all the world, we can no longer be 
pointed at as chief among oppressors, placing in the hands 
of slave-masters power over human beings, more irrespon- 
sible and absolute than is possessed by any potentate in 
Christendom. The advantages of a republic over other 
forms of government in conferring benefits on mankind, by 
teaching men that they are men, and that they are born into 
a world of grand possibilities; by educating them, and ac- 
quainting them with their own latent powers ; by encour- 
aging their highest aspirations, and stimulating and reward- 
ing every honest endeavor ; by furnishing them with mo- 
tives for high conduct as the best means of securing it ; 
by granting the boon of opportunity as a stimulus to 
achievement ; by taking oft' of them the pressure of over 
legislation ; by removing undue restraint, unreasonable ex- 
action, and guaranteeing that the product of their own 
time and talents and labor shall inure to their own benefit 
rather than that of others — these blessings of free govern- 
ment are he. ^*forth to be held up to the world without 
being robbed of half their power for good by our own in- 
consistent example. The principle we have adopted is to 
take the form of constitutional law in the words of the fol- 
lowing article: "Neither slavery, nor involuntary servi- 
tude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United 



18 

States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." And lest 
fragments of the old system should reappear undernewand 
insidious forms, a second section is added as follows, viz. : 
" Congress shall have power to enforce this article by ap- 
propriate legislation." And this is to be the law of the 
land, whether the State of New Jersey votes for or against 
it. And it may be the law of the land before the State of 
New Jersey can vote on the question. Can it be that our 
people so little comprehend the historic relations of their 
time that they can hesitate in thq decision of such a ques- 
tion ? Can it be that the State of New Jersey, with her honor- 
able name and her high historic memories ; with many of the 
battle-fields of the Revolution upon her soil ; with sons who 
have held distinguished place in the army and navy, and in 
the Councils of the Government ; with the ashes of her heroic 
dead mingled with the dust of every battle-field of our civil 
war : can it be that she is to be the last of the free States, 
and among the last of the slave States, to ratify an amend- 
ment to the Constitution, that is to be as memorably historic 
as the formation of the Constitution itself? The blind and 
faithless political leaders who have committed her to such 
a policy will be remembered in dishonor for generations. 

In the new order of things, the question of the elective 
franchise is one likely to be pressed early upon our atten- 
tion. Time will do much towards setting us right on this 
point. The South is impoverished by the war. The blacks 
are her laboring class, and in her present condition, labor 
is, and will lead to, capital and wealth. And in the regen- 
erating process there is as much rea'son to hope that the 
States of the South will accord to the blacks the right of 
suffrage as there is that we will do it her^?'-*^! Many men, of 
the educated classes, believe that the right of suffrage ought 
to be restricted rather than extended. This question I do 
not propose now to discuss. I would merely remind you 
that the people of the United States have accepted the 
principle of universal suffrage. It is not presumed that all 
men who vote, understand what they are doing, or that 



19 

there are not thousands of ballots cast without the shadow 
of an idea behind them. But it is supposed that this is a 
less evil than would follow if such men did not vote at all. 
It is supposed that under this system there would be a 
larger aggregate of intelligent men, and of votes intelligently 
cast, than there would be if we had a large non-voting 
population ; for, if you convert afty portion of your popula- 
tion into a proscribed class, there is little doubt that you 
injure them and you injure society ; you sink their self- 
respect, and as few men are benefitted by being belittled, 
there is a probability that they would accept the place you 
give them as their normal condition, and stay in it, without 
an effort to rise. Whereas, we have adopted the principle, 
that, to give a man an interest in a business is the best 
mode of securing faithful service ; that to give a man all 
the privileges of manhood is the best way to acquaint him 
with the duties of his manhood ; that to make a man a par- 
ticipant in the act of the State, is the best way to arouse all 
the energies of his nature in the service of the State ; that 
to make an enslaved man free is the best way to fit him for 
the responsibilities of freedom. And this I understand to 
be Americau theory, and there is nothing in all our history 
that goes to show an element of unsoundness in this 
theory ; and if it be true, you must grant the black man 
the right of suffrage. If you say the system of slavery 
has^o imbruted him that he is not fit to vote, then, I reply, 
that fitness in our system of government is not considered, 
but merely the fact of manhood. But if you say that the 
black is lower in tbe scale of being than our idea of man- 
hood contemplates, then I say, if you have a standard of 
fitness or of manhood, set it up, and when a black man 
reaches it, let him vote, and admit a principle, and be just. 
Do you talk of social equality ? Is not social inequality 
what you see around you among whites ? Do you seek 
social equality with every man who votes? Is it not 
nonsense to speak in the same breath of social equality and 
political rights ? If a man is a good citizen, honest, indus- 



20 

trious, intelligent, frugal, and religious, and you deny him the 
right to vote because he is black, and to another, who is 
not a good citizen, who is a blockhead and a sot, jou grant 
the privilege because he is white, you commit an unjust 
act that harms you and harms the State, and in the end 
must pay the penalty of wrong. And, have you not learned 
that a nation cannot sustain organized injustice and escape 
punishment forever ? Have you not learned, that, when 
the moral atmosphere of nations is persistently polluted, it 
is at last cleansed and purified by the storm and whirlwind 
of war ? Have you not learned that the world is under a 
moral government, and that in nations as in individuals, 
sooner or later, in the main, the ends of justice are attained ? 
My friends and fellow-countrymen, in concluding my 
remarks, may I not express the hope that the festivities of 
this day will not be allowed to pass, without an effort, upon 
the part of every American, to take just measure of these 
hours. For, never again in our lives, never, it may be, in 
the life of any one, is there to be celebrated a day of such 
marked historical significance as this Fourth of July, 18(55. 
We celebrate, not only, the birth of the nation, but its 
regeneration. We have passed through purifying fire. 
We have been tested by humiliation and misfortune. We 
have felt the shock of battles, and all the dread calamities 
of war, and have marched straight up to the line of our 
duty in the midst of weeping and mourning, and terror and 
death. Confident that we have not proved unworthy 
children of the heroes of the Eevolution ; on this day of all 
the year sacred to their memories, we deem it cause for 
profound congratulation and unbounded joy, that we have 
saved the nation which they founded. We ^have decided 
that man is capable of self-government ; that in a nation of 
freemen the decision of the ballot is final ; we have removed 
the long-disputed question of tlie relative rights and duties 
of the States, from the field of controversy, and the subject 
of slavery from the arena of politics; we have given the 
slave his freedom, and placed him on the path of elevation, 



21 

and we have exalted our national name and character by 
the purification of our constitutional law. And when you 
and I are gone ; when our children have grown up and grown 
old ; when the generations that are to come have peopled 
with busy life all our vast territory ; when thrift and in- 
dustry have rolled over prairie and mountain, and filled 
every nook and corner of the land ; when law inspired by 
liberty, and liberty regulated by law shall become the 
common inheritance and common pride of prosperous and 
happy millions, then, the day we now celebrate will be held 
in sacred memory ; the men who have led us through this 
struggle, and the loyal people who have sustained them, 
will be remembered in such honor, and their deeds cele- 
brated in such manner, as only a great and free people 
know how to accord to those, who, through toil and blood 
and sacrifice have vindicated Law and established Liberty — 
who have saved from destruction and purified from all 
stain so noble and beneficent a government. 

One feature of our system I have not alluded to ; it 
is its fitness for expansion. We quarrelled over the exten- 
sion of slavery, — we will unite and rejoice over the exten- 
sion of freedom. We Americans have some how acquired 
the reputation of being inclined to boasting and vain-glory 
— but, do not these traits, which seem personal character- 
istics, rather indicate the ardor of our devotion to political 
ideas ? I am sure it is not in the spirit of the pharisee's 
prayer; it is not that we have, or think we have, better 
heads or better hearts than others, but it is because of our 
admiration for a sound political principle, and our faith in 
its power to benefit mankind, that we exultingly fling our 
banners to the breeze, inscribed with the motto " E pluribus 
UNUM." The day is coming, I do not doubt, when Caftada 
and Mexico, and the States of Central America, will join 
the Federal Union ; not by conquest, not by fillibustering 
and piratical expeditions, but by the attractive power of a 
political' system that combines all the freedom of indepen- 
dent States, with the strength and solidity of a consolidated 



22 

government. More than ever, does our country now pos- 
sess every element of expansion, and the rights of the 
States and of the United States being defined and settled, 
and the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence in- 
grafted upon our organic law, it is impossible for contigu- 
ous States long to resist the pressure for annexation. 

And I believe that, here upon this vast territory, lying 
between the Atlantic and Pacific shores, and stretching 
through forty degrees of latitude, embracing every variety 
of soil and climate, and every element of wealth and power, 
with room for the energy, and work and worship of hun- 
dreds of millions of people, that here, we are laying the 
foundations, under the smile of the Almighty, of a more 
colossal empire than human imagination ever attempted 
to build. And it is the exulting feature of the day we 
celebrate ; it is the crowning glory of our time ; it is worth 
all the blood and treasure, all the sorrow and death of 
the last four years of agony, that we have been enabled, 
under God, to lay the foundations of this empire of free- 
dom, in truth and justice and humanity. 



n 

[The following lines were read on tlie occasion, and 
directed to be published,] 

THE JUBILEE OF FEEEDOM. 

BY JOHN COLLINS. 



Joy ! Victory ! thanks to God ! ! our starry banner 
Yet floats in triumph over land and sea ; 

Mark ! how the nations throng to do it honor, 
And bless America that she is free. 

Oh ! let that word resound like mad waves roaring, 
When lashed to fury by the northern gale, 

From loj'al hearts of tens of millions pouring. 
Till red Rebellion quakes with terror pale. 

Let it be heard in countless echoes ringing 
From cliff to island on our winding shore, 

Let it go forth with tears of joy and singing, 
" Praise God ! at last the bloody strife is o'er ! " 

Aye ! shout ! — till El Dorado's golden mountains 
More proudly lift their snow crowns in the sky, 

'Till, from the prairies wild and southern fountains, 
Swells one glad chorus — "Freedom shall not die.' 

Still louder raise that peal in tones of thunder, 
O'er each dismantled fort and battle plain, 

'Till, bursting e'en the bars of death asunder. 

Our brave ones cry, " We have not bled in vain." 

Let cannon boom — the knell of treason dying, 
While bells ring in a brighter, holier day ; 

From land to land the joyful news is flying, 
" Eternal justice holds her ancient sway ! " 

No longer now may tyrant masters trample 
Beneath their feet the bound and bleeding slave, 

Nor find, in Sacred Writ, a high example 
Of bondage, cruel as the yawning grave. 

No longer shall the crazed, despairing mother 
Shriek, as her child is torn from her embrace — 

No more may man destroy his sable brother 

With stripes and hunger, want and foul disgrace. 



24 



Joy for that day ! when, nature's rights possessing, 

Of life — of liberty — of honored toil, 
The freedman reaps a store of richest blessing, 

As earth rewards him from her generous soil. 

Shall we not learn by all the blood and treasure 
Poured on the shrine of desolating war, 

By deeds of mercy to shun God's displeasure, 
That our loved Union may be torn no more ? 

Shall we not raise the helpless, poor and lowly ? 

Shall we not light the dim benighted mind ? 
And point the drawning intellect to holy 

Truths, to no race or clime or creed confined ? 

Oh ! by the memory of our patriot sages. 
Daring the despot of the British throne. 

By all the suflPerings of the by-gone ages. 
Let us learn well a lesson for our own. 

Let not oppression blot our future story, 
Lest crime and anarchy forewarn our fall — 

Forget we not, that all the nation's glory 
Is based on Just and Equal Rights for all. 

Lift high the emblem of the land of Freedom ! 

Its stars and stripes unsoiled shall ever wave — 
Princes shall do it reverence — every kingdom 

Will fear its shadow or its friendship crave. 

Shout ! for the oppressor's iron rod is broken — 
With trumpet voice, the rapturous news proclaim ! 

Let cities blaze with myriad lights, in token 
That we have won a shining, world-wide fame. 

Long years of peace to him whom God has Grant-ed 
To act responsive to his country's call ! 

And to the hero who again has planted 
Our war-torn flag on Sumter's ruined wall. 

From every heart let fervent prayers ascending 
Join in thanksgiving for this glorious day, 

Oh ! may it usher in the reign unending 
Of love and justice in millennial sway. 

Hail ! Freedom ! hail ! in the blest age before us. 
Thy heaven-born star our guiding ray will be ; 

Around the earth shall roll one endless chorus. 
And the world join our Nation's Jubilee ! 



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